My fitness and weight loss journey on this road that they call life

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Type 1 Diabetic

Finally some good news… I hit my 10,000 step goal 3 days in a row this weekend. I even surpassed it on Saturday getting in a whopping 13,266 steps! WOOHOO

Now to get real. Talking to a girlfriend yesterday I told her that I felt like 10,000 steps is really unrealistic for me. It will take me hours after work to get these steps in…hours that I honestly do not have at the moment. So she suggested maybe a smaller goal to start off with instead of such a big one that I don’t feel great about. So that is exactly what I am going to do. I will start a little smaller and once I am hitting that goal on a regular basis THEN I will up the goal again until I reach the final goal of 10,000 steps. Does that make sense?

Trying to hit that 10,000 step goal has stressed me out every day and made me feel like a failure. And feeling like a failure is not something I do well.

On a normal day I reach an average of 4,000-5,000 (at the MOST) steps. I am changing my goal to 6,000 steps every day this week. I think that this is a little more realistic for me and hopefully will help me to accomplish something and start getting back into the grind. I need to be doing things that make me food GOOD about myself and not think negatively. I definitely think this will push me in the right direction. Plus..the turtle won the race didn’t he? Lol

I did get back on the Meal Prepping wagon this week and killed it with my lunches and snacks. I also got all the meal prepping done for my daughter’s lunches too, as she heads back to school on her first day of Grade 4 this morning. My meal prep included lower carb and higher protein lunches and breakfasts but I will do another post on that soon!

I also joined a new challenge group! If you have read my blog before, then you know how much I love a good challenge group :D. This challenge group is a bit different than the others though. It’s different because while it is a fitness based challenge group, it is aactually a group that is only for diabetics. Specifically Type 1 Diabetics like ME!

This is amazing because there are NO other groups like this. It is focused on helping you figure out how your body and blood sugars react to certain workouts and how to deal with them so that you can complete a really GOOD workout without worrying as much about blood sugar crashes or spikes. They post workouts 3 days a week and have really great healthy recipes that I will definitely be trying. They have diabetes related challenges every day as well.

I am feeling really excited about this, as well as conquering my meal prep this week, so I would say that I am on the road to success! Even if that road has a few bumps or turns that I have to navigate.

P.S.

We got to have a little fun this long weekend as well. Spent some time riding all the crazy rides at our hometown fair ❤ She loves her carnival rides…me? not so much lol

As you know I am a Type 1 Diabetic. This means that I am a T1 Superhero.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 6. Being 28 now, I have lived with diabetes for 22 years. That is basically my entire life. If that is not a superpower then I do not know what is!

Living with diabetes is hard. They joke that having T1 is a full time job and basically it is. It takes hours apon hours every week to manage (14+hours).

Its hard and sometimes it totally sucks, if I am being honest. But we do it because if we don’t, we die. There is no other option. There is no cure or magic ‘diet’ to help us. We need to find a cure and we need to find it now!

I will be participating in the 5km JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes on June 12, 2016! My goal is to raise $250 by that date and I could really use my Word Press family’s help with this. By clicking on the link below you can make a SECURE online dontation to my personal donation page. These funds go directly to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation which goes toward finding a cure to this awful disease. No donation is too small, everything helps.

So I am a Type 1 superhero. What type are you? Be the *putting your dollars to work* type by clicking the “Support Me!” button below!

I went to see my Endocrinologist (my doctor for my Type 1 diabetes) and my dietician last week. Neither of them were happy. Either not happy with me, or not happy with the way things have been going lately. There will be a lot of changes this coming year. Some changes are things that I should have been doing already but maybe had slacked off on for a while *cough* years *cough*. Some things are new, things that I knew in my heart of hearts but needed that official ‘doctor’s advice’ before really settling into my brain. I don’t make new years resolutions. These are changes that need to be made regardless of the time of year. It just so happened that I saw my doctors last week. It’s taken me this long (hence the dead blog space) to really wrap my head around everything. I don’t think I have it completely wrapped…but I am going to get there lol

As per my doctor, my blood sugar (A1C for those of you who actually speak diabetes) was elevated. I have never been one to have a good A1C. In my entire 21 years of being a type 1 diabetic I have only ever had 1 good A1C. But that is going to change (or so says my doctor). I have been instructed to test my blood sugars MORE (I usually fail miserably at this), get my blood work done every month and see a special diabetic nurse every 4-6 weeks. The thing that will be toughest for me will be the testing my blood sugar. I need to test 6+ times a day. Currently, I am lucky if I get in 2 tests a day and this is where I fail at being a diabetic lol. I am going to need to test my blood sugar upon waking up, 30 minutes before and 2 hours after every meal/snack, before bed, in the middle of the night, and any other time I am fasting (lol never) or just feel like it. I am having a panic attack just writing this, but I NEED to do this. I NEED to wrap my head around it NOW because if I don’t, there is a good chance I will die a lot SOONER than later. There are so many health complications that come along with high blood sugars. They are scarey; I know, I have seen them first hand in other people. Also, once my blood sugars are more under control I will feel so much better and I honestly cannot wait for that. I have felt like shit for years but I have felt even worse in the past few months. This will help me immensely on my journey to a healthy me.

As for the meeting with my dietician and my journey to a FIT me…For a year I have followed the advice of my doctor and have been sticking to a 1200-1300 calorie meal plan in an attempt to lose weight. During this time I have lost an insignificant amount of weight and have stopped loosing altogether over the past 6 months. I couldn’t figure out why? I have been working out and eating as my doctor advised for a year. An entire year and I have lost a total of about 5 pounds compared to my weight at the same time last year. Luckily I went to see my dietician a few days later and she gave me some great news….I have not been eating enough. Maybe that’s not the great news. The great news would be the fact that I get to eat more food! WOOHOO She has set me up with a new meal plan of 1400 calories (more on workout days). The reason, she said, that I have not seen the weight loss that I wanted is 1) because as a type 1 diabetic it is very difficult to lose weight in general and 2) because my metabolism doesn’t have enough calories to work correctly.

I know not to expect a weight loss like most ‘normal’ people experience but I am HOPING *PRAYING* that I will see SOMETHING! Something that is going to at least push me a little closer to my smaller goals that I have set and eventually (in a few years) towards my larger goals.

I am not giving up. This is me jumping over a crack in the sidewalk of my journey. Wish me luck! I am definitely going to need it J

I’m not really sure what is wrong with me the last few weeks. I am so overly tired. Tired to the point that when I get home from work, at 6pm, I eat dinner and go to bed. My daughter gets herself ready and basicly puts herself to bed so that all I have to do it tuck her in and say goodnight before heading to dream land myself.

I have ZERO energy to do. To do laundry. To do lunch prep (sometimes I do still manage this). To do fun things with my daughter. To do any excersize routine of any shape or form. What the hell is wrong with me?

I got blood work done to see if some levels were low but it came back and everything was fine. My diet hasnt changed. I have a new job but honestly there isnt too much stress. But I am waking up MULTIPLE times per night. I am waking up MID thought…my brain is not shutting off when I go to sleep, it just keeps going!

Insomnia. Is that what they would call this? Even though I can fall asleep, and fall back to sleep everytime I wake up in the night. Is that still insomnia or is it something else?

I hope to God I figure it out soon or I feel like I will never be able to work out again.

For those of you who do not know the different between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes—and trust me most of you dont even if you think you do—Type 2 is the kind of diabetes that can be controlled with diet, excersize, sometimes medications are added if you cannot control your diet or excersize. Type 2 is USUALLY weight related or age related or a mix of both. Type 1 (the kind that I have been blessed with) is an auto-immune disease where my body decided one day to attack itself, specifically my pancreas, and shut down my ability to produce any insulin what-so-ever. Type 1 is not caused by being overweight, or from eating to much sugary foods. Type 1 and Type 2 are often confused as many people are not even aware that there are more than 1 type.

A little background:

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was 6 years old (I still cant believe that I have had diabetes for 21 years!). I was on multiple insulin injections every day, had to watch my diet carefully and was always sick in someway or another. On injections, I was in the hospital 1-2 times a month because of bad blood sugars.

When I was 15 I was given the chance to get an insulin pump. This was the best thing that could ever happen to me as it helped keep my blood sugars under control and I was never hospitalized for my diabetes again.The pump allowed me to live like a normal human being, but since I had always watched what I ate so closely and been so restricted before, I started gaining a lot of weight being able to eat whatever I wanted.

I was young and stupid and am paying the price for those binge sessions now. But imagine going from eating whatever a 6 year old eats (loving candy and chocolate etc) to being restricted. Literally not being able to eat any of those things for years after you already know what they taste like. You know what your missing and you are a kid who just wants to have a damn chocolate bar. Now imagine you go from really not being able to have any of those amazing tasting treats (yes sometimes I had a piece here and there shh..) to being told its fine if you eat them now….ugh DUH! I ate the shit out of that food. I ate everything that was restricted in my diet. That is where my weight struggles began.

I have definitely changed my eating habits now and am watching my diabetes so much more closely. I have been since my daughter was born 7 years ago (the birth of a child will do that to a person lol). I dont often binge and I eat food that is so much better for me, and makes me feel better too. Although I DO NOT deny myself the simple pleasures that food brings to my life, I enjoy those pleasures a little more carefully and with a little bit more moderation than I did when I was a teenager set free to eat what I wanted.

Sometimes though, I get people who make assumptions, or follow stereotypes about diabetes. Often someone (a laymen of sorts) talks to me about my diabetes and they make comments like ‘thats the bad kind right?’. I also get comments like ‘stop eating so much sweets then’ or ‘well once you loose the weight you will be fine’, when in reality this has nothing to do with my diabetes. Yes, my blood sugars will get BETTER as I loose weight but my diabetes will NEVER go away.

No matter how healthy I eat, how much weight I lose, how active I am, my Type 1 Diabetes will never go away. Actually having Type 1 diabetes makes losing weight so much harder than those who do not have it. The life saving insulin that I have to take everyday, all day, actually helps me to gain weight quite quickly and makes losing said weight nearly impossible. Isn’t that nice of it? lol

Anyways, I just wanted to shed some light on an issue that I deal with personally. This is Part 1, as I have so much information and did not want to make my post excruciatingly long 🙂 I am so thoughtful that way. Part 2 is mostly about the issues that I have while working out and eating with Type 1 Diabetes.

Thanks for reading. Don’t be afraid to comment below for any experiences you have had with stereo types or even some funny stories.